I've owned the gamut of personal espresso machines, from the very expensive "Astra pour over", that took up half of my kitchen, to the very inexpensive Krups aluminum coil machine that is no longer sold. All of these machines produce a shot of coffee if used properly. For the sake of this review, I'll compare this to a couple slightly more expensive but similar semi-automatic espresso machines I've personally owned and compare them based not only on their ability to make a good shot but also on things like longevity and user-friendliness.The construction of this machine mainly plastic with a few external parts made of aluminum. It heats quickly and loses it's heat just as quickly. It seems to produce a hot enough shot but steaming even a small amount of milk will take two to three heating cycles to produce hot foamy milk. The steam wand seems to produce foam just fine though if you like manual steaming you will find yourself really having to keep the metal tip just at the sweet spot to get it to heat and produce foam properly, there just isn't enough steam flow for anything else. The steam wand it'self, rotates only in two dimensions so you will need to hold the milk carafe in position. You cannot move the wand down into the milk.The Portafilter is one of the small types. I have a custom tamper I made on a lathe years ago and it fit's perfectly so I'm going to assume it's the same size as other small inexpensive semi-automatics. The smaller size portafilter doesn't quite hold as much coffee, and the surface area of the top of the coffee is about half so take it with a grain of salt. It is easier to get a good shot with a large portafilter, that being said I and many other people have been able to get decent shot's out of these types of machines. You will, of course, have to mess with your grind settings to do it. The coffee should be ground so that it almost but doesn't quite clog the portafilter. You should taste the coffee on the sides of your tongue when poured properly.I was unable to find replacement parts for this machine. That does not mean that there are none, however, if you intend to keep this machine you will need to replace the portafilter gasket periodically. It's not, just this machine. The high temp rubber used in these gaskets tends to get hard and stop sealing with time. Used daily you will probably get between 8 months to a year before that part will need to be replaced on almost any machine. Within two years the steam wand will pull enough dry burned milk up into it to clog at least the rotating part to make the steam flow even less usable. You may be able to disassemble it and clean it, or you may need new parts depending on the design. If you need to replace the machine every time your portafilter gasket goes out it may make your $80 investment moot if you could have paid twice that for something you could have kept for twice as long without the other little problems.Final conclusion:It actually works. It's cheap with all of it's plastic parts but it does make a decent cup of coffee if you spend enough time dialing in your grind. Normally I would have a lot of complaints about things like the steam wand only moving side to side or the soupy mess of coffee in the portafilter after every shot, but I just said this was $80.I would challenge anyone to find a machine that can make a decent cup of coffee for anywhere near that amount, and if you calculate the cost of a cup of coffee shop coffee purchased daily I think you will find that replacing this every six months will still be cheaper.I fought, mentally, over that last star. I would have given it 4 stars if I could have found replaceable parts or if the steamer hadn't needed to recharge three times to steam a cup of milk. As is I'm giving it three only because I can find semi-automatic machines for twice this price that have most of the problems listed covered, including replaceable parts. If I'm going to recommend this to a friend I need to know that he isn't going to need to replace the machine in less than a year due to the portafilter gasket going hard. For this money it does what you want it to do and easily earns it's three stars. If all you have is less than $100 and you need an espresso machine just go and get one. You won't be unhappy with your decision.Makes excellent express, not sure about cappuccino, presently seams to shoot out water into the milk making for watery milk, maybe will do better as machine breaks in, but for now, I’m very happy with expresso.I have owned this product for almost a year and use it at least 5 days a week. It was amazing at first, great crema and easy to use. Within 3 months however no matter how nice of a bean I buy there was no crema on the pour anymore. It bums me out but it still does it’s job so I get my use out of the product. However I probably would have been willing to spend the extra money for something that holds out a little better over time.Someone asked me how many watts this thing is that I don’t know because I don’t ask questions like that you could call Hamilton Beach and find out the model of this thing and go back into Amazon and research that.I could check. OK, I’ll check because I’m a nice person. I don’t feel like checking but I got up out of my seat picked up the machine it still has water in it 105OW. I don’t know why you would ask that question unless you were overseas and had to do something about the electric or something.I’ve never had anybody ask that question but I answered you when I didn’t feel like it.This is the best espresso/coffee maker I ever owned.I don’t use the froth or because I don’t wanna plug it up that I live in Florida and drink Bustelo and Pilon coffee , as well as other brands like what’s on sale and Dunkin’ Donuts caramel coffee. I have a froth or battery operated stick that works for my frothing got this thing works as good as one of those one cup things but you cannot fit a large cup of coffee underneath unless you take out the bottom half and just let it brew in the morning.if you’re one of those picky people who cannot follow instructions, do not buy this but if you’re like me you’re easy-going you’d probably like this .Frother is not that good. It makes ok espressos. I will go with a different machine next time.We really enjoy this coffee maker. It is simple and easy to operate and consistently makes a great cup of coffeeAll is good about this coffee maker. Best deal on the market.It works it makes good coffee... However I had to fiddle with the grind...either too coarse or too fine...Also I had to keep pausing the foaming of hot milk because the light would often go out... It leaks a little water during warm-up but no big deal. Frothing milk on this machine isn't shall we say very "frothy". Other machine made by delonghi does much better job. i have bought this machine twice because of this delicious coffee it makes...Keep in mind however what i said about the grind. Leave about 1/8 inch from the top of the filter assembly. Tamping is key to getting the right flow of water as well as grind so you have to experiment. Get your own grinder!!!!!Llevo ya casi dos años con ella y puedo decir que ha sido una muy buena compra, ha servido perfecto para iniciarme en esto de preparase uno mismo su propio expresso, cappuccino, etc.De las caracteristicas que faltan por mencionar en la descripcion es que utiiza canastillas de 51mm x 25mm, por lo que es compatible con canastillas no presurizadas de este tamaño, tambien el panarello (boquilla para espumar) de plastico es desmontable y queda uno completo de metal con el que se puede espumar leche para latte aunque hay que practicar bastante para conseguirla.Aqui pongo algunos tips que he aprendido sobre la marcha usando la cafetera:- Para que tenga buena potencia y no se vaya a tapar con el tiempo lo que hago es encenderla y en cuanto se pone el foco verde la activo con el tercer boto pero sin colocarle todavia el portafiltro, y la paro cuando empieza a caer un poco de agua, asi la bomba ya queda cargada, se quita cuaquier residuo que hubiera del uso anterior y el agua sale mas caliente al filtrar el cafe, una vez detenida ya coloco el portafiltro con cafe y la activo.- Una vez termina de filtrar, espero unos 20 segundos, quito el portafiltro y la activo nuevamente unos 3 segundos para que se limpien los conductos, aqui tener un poco de cuidado ya que el agua sale ya con un poco de vapor.- Para preparar cappuccino utilizo el panarello de plastico, lo sumerjo hasta donde quedan los dos orificios superiores apenas encima de la superficie de la leche, para preparar latte utilizo el espumador sin panarello, aqui coloco la punta del espumador apenas encima de la superficie de la leche, como en los espumadores profesionales.- Entre mas grueso sea el molido del cafe mas apretado debe quedar para que no salga tan ligero el cafe, si es ya molido de espresso solo requiere una ligera compactacion.Y despues de tanto escribir ya me dieron ganas de prepararme un cafecito.Amo esta cafetera!! La uso diario desde hace 8 y no ha presentado fallas.Explico una experiencia para aquellos que les pueda llegar a pasar algo similar:Estuve a punto de devolverla a los 2 meses de uso porque asumía que se había tapado internamente, ya que al preparar el café solo salían gotas. El café que yo solía comprar ya venía molido específicamente para espresso. Intenté limpiar la máquina y accesorios con diferentes productos e incluso la desarmé (arriesgándome a invalidar la garantía) y limpié todas las piezas posibles. Al volverla a armar, seguía presentando el mismo problema. La dejé de usar por casi un mes y estuve muy tentado a comprar otra. Finalmente un día, compré una bolsa de café en una tienda distinta, igualmente con grano molido para espresso. Volví a usar la cafetera y sorpresivamente el café espresso empezó a salir como si la cafetera fuera nueva.Revisé el grano de la bolsa nueva y lo comparé con el de la otra bolsa y había una ligera diferencia; el grano de la bolsa anterior era un poco más grueso, es decir, no estaba realmente molido para espresso (aunque eso dijera la etiqueta).En conclusión:Si compras esta cafetera y algún día presenta los mismos síntomas, solo confirma que realmente tengas el grano de café molido adecuadamente, no puede ser ni demasiado fino ni demasiado grueso.Recomiendo comprar el molino Hamilton Beach 80393, trae diferentes configuraciones y entre ellas, la necesaria para que la molienda siempre quede exacta para esta cafetera (entre medio y fino).Opté también por empezar a comprar café en grano y molerlo yo, ya que es muy frecuente que en muchos establecimientos, muelan el café a ciegas y te vendan lo que no es.Me habría gustado que fuera más alta porque limita el tamaño de tazas que puedes usar. (Básicamente tazas pequeñas o no muy altas).Antes del primer uso es de suma importancia que lean el manual para poder comprender su funcionamiento y les recomiendo busquen ayuda audiovisual en Youtube, hay dos o tres vídeos que les facilitarán aprender a usar su máquina (busquen por la marca y modelo de la cafetera). Esta máquina no es como las de Nespresso, es más compleja y hay que entender como usarla antes, durante y al finalizar nuestra taza de café negro, latte o capuccino. Tiene su grado de complejidad pero es fácil de usar una vez que aprendes a seguir las instrucciones de uso, aunque no la recomiendo si eres alguien que no lee el manual. Debes usar el molido correcto de café para tu máquina, de lo contrario se tapará el filtro y no saldrá el café. Algo que me sorprendió fué la buena calidad de "espumado" que puedes conseguir para lattes y capuccinos. Recomiendo comprarla si eres fanático del café y de hacerte tu taza a tu gustoLa mejor oportunidad para hacerse de una cafetera con bomba de 15 bares.Muy buena presentación, aunque las charolas de acero inoxidable tienen cortes muy bastos y sin pulir. El resto de la máquina muestra excelentes acabados.El uso es un poco complejo al carecer de algún sistema automático y cuesta trabajo inicialmente calcular las cantidades de agua.Pero se puede acostumbrar a hacerlo.El instructivo es demasiado básico. Presupone muchos conocimientos cuando es una cafetera para "principiantes".Recomiendo para estos observar cómo lo preparan los profesionales.Si están acostumbrados a las cafeteras de 3 bares, esto es completamente distinto.Sin embargo, por el precio, vale la pena y con creces.